A Moment Between Us
by iMusicalMinji
Summary: In which Gamzee cannot apply his makeup, so Karkat helps. Typical Homestuck second person point of view style.


While drugged up on sopor slime, Gamzee's hands were always as relaxed as the rest of his body; slow and a little lethargic. They were always so steady and gentle with whatever he was handling, from tender but unwanted pats and even how he carefully juggled clubs before crushing little devious imps with them. You had always assumed the same would apply to when he did his daily makeup, but you had never witnessed him doing it yourself. You always saw him in it, sometimes you even assumed he slept in it too.

It was understandable that he would make some sort of mask to hide himself from the world with, given how much shit he had gone through even well before the game started. It must not have been easy, at least you had your lusus around mostly, even if he was mega annoying most of the time. You can't help but pity him. You miss your lusus greatly, even now, you couldn't imagine that feeling constantly throughout your life with a guardian that would up and leave for weeks or months on end.

Those gentle and steady hands were now shaking with his alert and sober mind, the tremors so bad that it rendered him unable to even hold his makeup brush correctly. There were splotches of white and dark grey all over the floor around him, no doubt a sign that he was continuously dropping the brush. The pain from the slashes around his face only made things worse, causing his already unsteady hands to jerk a bit when in contact with the sensitive flesh. The whites and greys were blending and smudged with his blood, the whole ordeal looking incredibly uncomfortable even from the view of a bystander. And yet, he still sat rooted in place and focused in on a compact mirror trying to apply his mask.

You made a noise at that, brief and through your nose. It seemed you weren't the only one raiding Kanaya's things after all.

This gave you away, your moirail's eyes dragged over to you in the dimly lit room. If you had been anyone else, a chill might have crept up your spine at the eerie glow emitting from his eyes, but you only approached instead. Your face was smoothed out from its habitual look of frustration and instead a little sad as you took a seat in front of him and held out your hand. He ignored it at first, breaking eye contact and trying to raise the paint clumped brush to his face again. You noticed how he seemed to forcibly try to relax his face and posture now that he knew you were here, but it was still obvious that a rising heat of anger was boiling in his core.

You scooted a little closer to him, knocking the mirror closed and bumping his knees lightly. This seemed to startle him mildly, causing his agitated hand to drop the brush. It bounced off of your leg, splattering your pants with the dark paint but you didn't really mind. You didn't want to break the silence, even as you grabbed his still raised hand and softly lowered it down to his lap. "Hey..." You almost whisper it, more air than words.

He gives you a loopy grin and it feels so fake that it sort of hurts to look at. "Hey Karbro.." His words were just as quiet as yours, maybe even quieter.

You take a moment just to study his face, the hazardous and hard brushes of paint and the jagged semi closed gashes. You even found yourself brushing his bangs to the side with only the barest tips of your fingers with the hand that wasn't still holding his. He seemed to almost chase the feeling, leaning toward the direction your fingers went. A noise escaped him and you were entirely unsure if it was a chuckle or a choked sob, it only sounded like a sickly wheeze. "My hands just keep up and movin' on me..."

He was trying hard to keep his voice level, even if it did turn into a pathetic whimper toward the end. He looked everywhere but into your eyes, even attempting to fumble with the brush on the floor a bit more instead. You picked it up, moving it just slightly out of his reach. He was staring now, eyes peering up through his brow at you. He was no longer even trying to pretend to be his usually goofy and cheerful self. His lips were set in a hard line, not quite frowning yet but somehow it felt even more dangerous than if he was.

You ignored the look, settling instead to open up your sylladex and rummage through it. The chill from earlier was back, and you were now confident to say that it was indeed sending pin pricks of tension through your neck, but you were stubborn and refused to give into him. It didn't take you long to find what you were looking for and pull it from your system, a slim box of makeup removing wipes that you had pilfered from Kanaya's room in the silent hours upon the meteor while she was out canoodling with Rose somewhere. His expression doesn't change even as you work your hand over his face with the damp cloth. With more and more of his bare skin exposed to you, his expression softens just a bit. "Thank you," he says with a surprising amount of sincerity.

You nod, because you didn't know what else to do, before settling with "What else are moirails for?"

He closes his eyes for you without even being told, and you pull a new wipe from the container and continue working it over his eye lids and forehead. Like earlier, he follows your touch and you couldn't bring yourself to chastise him for moving too much while you tried to clean his face. He deserved a bit of comfort after all. It had been a few days since the brink of madness boiled over on the meteor, and the first time you had seen his expression so clear. You wondered what was always going through his head, wondered if all his aggression was even really his. Could all of that really had been caused by withdrawals? This seemed to be the closest you got to having your best friend back in a long while.

You twisted the wipe a bit to form a tip before trying to clean around his wounds, carefully attempting not to place it in any parts that were still open and moist. It was a little harder than you thought it would be, it seemed that your hands weren't as steady as you had hoped. You almost expected your companion to make a comment, or joke with you about it, but he remained silent and content with just being touched.

Once his face was clean and bare, you couldn't help with lean back and just look at him. This was the first time you had ever seen him without the paint covering his face. You didn't really know what you were expecting, but just knowing that he considered you his best friend for more sweeps then you could remember and yet you had never bothered even learning what he looked like under the paint made you feel like a shitty friend and even shittier moirail. He opened his eyes after a moment, the tired bags under them even more pronounced now as were the subtle flecks of his blood color starting to bleed into his irises.

You broke the stare first, "Do you have any clean brushes?"

His sylladex opened, still the psychedelic vomit it had always been, but surprisingly well organized. You helped yourself to a few new brushes and unopened paints before the menu vanished from view. "Hold still," you warned. "Tell me if this hurts."

You started with a solid coat of white. It took longer than you would care to admit, working with a smaller brush to avoid getting anything into his cuts. It took a while for you to get it even without any of his natural skin tone peeking through, but once you were pleased with the result, you unscrewed the lid on the dark grey and grabbed a new brush to start. You were impressed with how much this looked like how he normally did his own paint, and that made you feel a little less like a shitty moirail knowing that you might have unconsciously memorized the patterns. You were halfway done with his second eye when he started to tilt forward, causing you to smudge the makeup right up to his temple before the brush fell away from your hand. "What are you doing?" you shrieked. "Look what you made me do!"

He only chuckled before wrapping his gangly arms around your small frame, smearing his wet face against the side of yours. You were literal seconds away from yelling about how gross it felt before he cut in before you, "We'll always have one another, right? Best friend?"

You were almost ashamed of how long it took you to relax into his embrace. "Yea."

You felt like you were lying.

The guilt reverberated within you, even as you wrapped your own arms around his bony torso. It's not like you were making a promise when you gave him a squeeze.

"Always.".


End file.
